What's On My Plate

This is one of those details of how I did my most recent chip carving piece, a plate.  

Here is the first step: getting the pattern on to the wood:  there are various methods of copying that pattern.




Now to begin the actual carving.  There are knives designed especially for this.





Then you keep on until the whole pattern has been carved.



Now you are ready to finish it up by adding a stain and then spraying on a polyurethane finish, and  you have this:




There are other ways to do this, but this is the process I use.  The most beneficial aspect of carving is first the therapeutic process of carving, and then the pleasure of giving your finished work to someone else, or have it displayed somewhere in your own place.  Many relaxing hours are the effect.  I studied this with Wayne Barton, a master carver who comes regularly to the Brasstown Folk School.